


Broken Wings

by vibidi



Series: A Study in Flight [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Buckle up kids its gonna be a rough ride, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Anguish, No Canon Characters Were Killed in the Making of This Fic, Somewhat Unreliable Narrator, Survival, We got the whole nine yards lads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-09-25 05:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9804686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vibidi/pseuds/vibidi
Summary: Since reuniting in Moscow a week ago, Yuri and Otabek have been inseparable. Their friendship is stronger than ever, and might even be on the verge of blossoming into more. With Otabek having taken gold at the Rostelecom Cup, they travel to Beijing to compete against one another for the first time since last year's Grand Prix.And then the impossible happens.Their plane crashes.[Friendly reminder that in real life, your chance of dying in a plane crash is 1 in 11,000,000.]





	1. The Impossible

**Author's Note:**

> [Mood music, if that's your thing.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhBqfNDpiGs&list=PLa5FmthjrP8THgOiz32OBr63GUvFtr6Mj)

“You don’t need the fucking tiger!” Otabek snapped.

“Shut up, we’ve got time if you stop whining about it!” Yuri retorted, skidding to a halt and dashing out of the concourse and into a convenience store. 

In one week, the two skaters would compete against one another for the first time since last year’s Grand Prix. But at the moment they were more concerned with getting to their gate before they ended up missing their flight.

At least, Otabek was. Yuri seemed more interested in the cheap stuffed tiger displayed on the rack of the duty-free shop they _should_ have just run past. He dropped his backpack on the floor and scrambled for his wallet as an apathetic shopkeeper raised a lazy brow at the pair.

“That’ll be 1110 rubles,” she groused. 

Yuri slammed down a pair of bills on the counter and before he could get a word in edgewise Otabek had him by the hoodie and his backpack in the other hand. “Keep the change,” he told the cashier. 

“What the fuck, let me get my money, you crook!” Yuri shouted, shooing Otabek’s hand from his jacket but nevertheless falling in step as they made a wild dash for the gate. 

Otabek didn’t care to respond, not when there were more pressing matters at hand. Yuri would thank him later.

The complaints continued as they sprinted for the other end of the terminal. “I told you the 9:30 was a shit idea!” 

There was no need to point out that it was Yuri who had stayed up late, slept in, spent ten minutes yelling at security, and stopped to buy a stuffed animal. Otabek just shot him a withering look.

An automated voice echoed through the halls as they ran. _This is the final boarding call for passengers Yuri Plisetsky and Otabek Altin booked on Aeroflot flight 123 to Beijing, China. Please proceed to gate fourteen immediately. The final checks are being completed and the captain will order for the doors of the aircraft to close in approximately five minutes time. I repeat. This is the final boarding call for Yuri Plisetsky and Otabek Altin. Thank you._

It was enough to get Yuri to shut up and concentrate on getting to the gate in time, and for that much Otabek was thankful. He had his share of chaotic and disorganized friends back in Almaty, but none that would risk missing a flight for a stuffed tiger.

By the time they’d navigated the endless maze of gates, displayed their passports, and made it into the airplane, Otabek couldn’t help but wonder if it would have been simpler to just catch the next flight. 

They darted down the boarding bridge, footsteps heavy against the linoleum, and Otabek could have sworn Yuri was smiling. 

At long last they filed into the jet. The wild glimmer in Yuri’s eyes was gone now, and he glared at the disgruntled passengers as though daring them to start something. Otabek gazed tactfully at the ceiling, trying to look like they weren’t traveling together. Walking all the way to the third-last row felt rather like a walk of shame, albeit without the consolation of having gotten laid. 

Once Yuri had slipped into the window seat, Otabek settled his bag beneath his feet and settled in next to him, watching the flight attendants outline safety procedures they had both heard a thousand times.

Yuri put his knees up and rested them on the seat in front of him, earning (and ignoring) an annoyed backwards glare from the man sitting in front of him. “I told you economy would be shit,” he muttered. “Shouldn’t the Hero of Kazakhstan be travelling in style?”

“For seven hours? Business Class might as well be a scam,” Otabek responded evenly. “A gold medal is worthless if you let it go to your head.”

“Hypocrite!” Yuri accused. The grin returned. “If you’re so humble, why’d you let me upload that photo of your medal?”

Touché. He shrugged, ceding the debate in favour of his own sanity.

Since taking gold at the Rostelecom Cup a few days ago, Otabek might have been a _little_ smug. But of all the things in the world worth gloating over, finishing two points ahead of Jean-Jacques Leroy had to be near the top of the list, especially when many of his fans back home were still bitter about the bronze at last year’s Grand Prix. 

Better yet that Yuri had been there to document it all on Instagram and Twitter. At this rate, Otabek was more active on his friend’s accounts than his own. When they’d met up in Moscow a week earlier, Yuri had closely documented their reunion at the airport, the dinner out that followed (hailed as a “date” by unapologetic Yuri’s Angels), and the days spent training and enjoying each other’s company. They’d spent almost every waking hour of their time together, despite Yakov’s ornery protests: fondness, bursting at the seams and constrained only by the distance between them, had overflowed and settled warm in their chests as though they had never been apart. 

The plane began to hum, and Otabek clipped his seatbelt as the safety demonstration ended and the pilot started to taxi towards the runway. Yuri took out his iPod and put his earbuds in as he watched the airport roll by outside.

It was all smiles and good-natured teasing now, but Otabek didn’t plan to hold back at the Cup of China. Many skaters had been intimidated by the return of the legendary Viktor Nikiforov, and their anxieties had only been compounded when he had taken silver at Skate America. Fellow competitor Michele Crispino had flubbed a critical jump. At Skate Canada, just days later, Leo de la Iglesia had taken such a terrible fall that his physician had ordered him off the ice for two months.

Viktor didn’t scare him, and with other competitors succumbing to their own nerves, there might never be a better time to win gold for Kazakhstan during the course of his career. No matter how close they’d become, Otabek wasn’t going to let Yuri stand in the way of that. 

The jet came to a stop on the runway, and Otabek settled deep in his seat. It felt strange, flying with Yuri instead of his coach, but he could get used to it. There was a certain thrill to living by Yuri’s internal clock, which was decidedly different than that of most professional skaters.

A sudden thrust signalled liftoff. Otabek peered over Yuri’s shoulder- taking flight was no longer exhilarating, he flew far too often to retain that childlike awe- but there was still a certain low-key, satisfying enjoyment to be had. As the wheels lifted off the ground his attention was captured by a small suitcase covered in tags dropping into the aisle. He bent down swiftly to pick it up and keep it from flying around the cabin before returning to his previous position. 

People and cars became ants, the landscape’s distinguishing features faded into regularity, and finally the world below was carpeted in cottony clouds and the seatbelt light was turned off. A textbook takeoff.

Almost immediately, a brown-haired, spectacled teen from two rows up dashed over. “I’m so sorry!” he exclaimed in English. Otabek lifted a brow.

“Th-the bag,” the stranger stuttered, shame tinting his cheeks pink. “I tried to secure the compartment but the hostess told me I had to sit down. It didn’t hit you on the head, did it?”

“No. It’s fine.” Otabek offered the boy his luggage only to find he had gone blank-faced and silent, staring past him.

“Is… is that Yuri Plisetsky?” he breathed. 

Ah.

“Huh?” Yuri pulled his earbuds out, clearly peeved. Otabek had heard Yakov lecture him about how to treat fans at least a dozen times over the past week, but the old man wasn’t flying to Beijing until the day before the competition, and the unsupervised Ice Tiger was as likely to bite as he was to purr.

But the teenager went on before either of them could get a word in edgewise. “My name is Nakamura Kaito, and I’m going to beat your record one day! My senior debut is next season, so you better watch out!”

Yuri smirked and cocked his head. “Beat Katsudon at nationals or something first. Then come find me.”

It was quite distinctly a challenge, not a dismissal. Perhaps Yakov’s persistence had paid off after all.

Kaito’s eyes shone. “You mean Katsuki Yuuri? Oh my gosh, do you think you’ll be able to beat him this year too? Ah! Sorry!” The junior paused to edge up against the seats and let a snack cart roll by, then dove right back into his raving. “You were both so amazing last year! And it was so close! I wish you both could have gotten gold! And you should have gotten bronze,” he added, grinning widely at Otabek.

“JJ’s performance last year was worthy of the bronze medal,” Otabek responded tactfully. Unable to help himself, he added, “But not at the Rostelecom Cup, clearly. He always has been cocky.”

Kaito looked like he was about to burst. He’d opened his mouth to respond when someone from a few rows up called to him and he flushed. “Sorry, I bet you guys get this all the time. But it was really, really great meeting you.” He pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose then waved and began making his way back to his seat. “Good luck at the Cup of China!”

“Thanks,” they both said in unison. Otabek permitted himself a small, satisfied smile. Yuri, on the other hand, was very openly preening.

“Why can’t the rest of my fans be like that?” the blond snickered. “Too bad I might have to destroy him one day.”

Otabek blinked. Slow, calculated. “I didn’t know Yuri Plisetsky was capable of pity.”

“Shut up!” Yuri punched his shoulder. Otabek hardly noticed the dull pain; he was too focused on the jovial smile that lit his friend’s face like a brilliant firecracker. Ephemeral, vivid, and an agonizing reminder of what they couldn’t have. 

There was a soft little creature that lived in his chest and woke whenever Yuri smiled. It made Otabek _vulnerable_ , and he didn’t like it, but he didn’t have the heart to drive it away. 

The Russian continued. “You better not expect pity at the Cup of China, unless you want me to kick you off the podium myself!”

“With your knife shoes? Sounds dangerous,” Otabek deadpanned. Yuri had gone through a short phase after Barcelona where he refused to call his skates anything else, and he hated being reminded of it. 

The plane jumped like a car going over a pothole, and moments later the seatbelt sign came on again with a _ding_.

At about the same time, the intercom crackled to life. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We’ll be going through some light turbulence for the next thirty minutes, so please refrain from standing until the seatbelt sign has been turned off, thank you.”

Otabek obliged, fastening his belt then bending over to dig through his carry-on. He was in the habit of travelling light, but a book of sudoku puzzles and crosswords could go a long way on a boring daytime flight. 

Yuri, on the other hand, acted as though he hadn’t heard the announcement. He hiked his knees higher on the seat ahead of him and flipped through his phone. Pointedly ignoring Otabek’s previous comment, he groaned, “This is stupid. How’d we end up on like, the _one_ fucking plane that doesn’t have wifi?

While it was true that tedium was already beginning to weigh over them, just forty-five minutes into a seven hour flight, Otabek didn’t see it as an excuse to act like a petulant child. He put his forearm over Yuri’s thighs and pushed his legs back down to the floor. “Seatbelt.”

“You sound like Yakov!” Yuri snapped in his Furious-Over-A-Minor-Inconvenience voice.

The plane jumped again. Yuri rolled his eyes, but the seatbelt went on. 

 

It wasn’t long before the infamous Russian Punk was fast asleep, his cheekbone digging into Otabek’s shoulder as he drooled down his jacket. Despite the discomfort, Otabek wouldn’t have had it any other way. He scrawled absent-mindedly in the puzzle book, looking up on occasion to see how far along they were. As if that would make the plane go faster, he thought with an inward smile. Some childhood habits were frustratingly clingy. 

The flight path was hugging the border between Russia and Kazakhstan, heading towards Mongolia. The turbulence hadn’t bothered them for hours but with the Altai mountains rising below, he suspected it might get a little bumpy. Otabek would have been happy to let Yuri sleep on him the whole flight, but he had to admit, the thought of the Russian being startled awake and realizing how much he’d been drooling was thoroughly entertaining.

Sure enough, the plane rattled and Otabek’s pen jerked, his 2 turned into a 7. Yuri shifted against him, letting out a soft groan.

Otabek blew a strand of blond hair out of his face.Yuri’s eyelids fluttered under the breath, and Otabek wondered if his heart had just stopped or if he was just imagining things.

“Beka. How long?” Yuri mumbled.

A quick glance at the screen on the seat in front of him provided the answer, but Otabek waited just a few seconds before speaking, committing the moment to memory: the sunlight shimmering through Yuri’s lashes, the soft tickle as he exhaled, the warmth of his cheek.

“About three hours,” he eventually sighed. “Then I can finally wipe your slobber off me.”

Yuri shot up. “I wasn’t drooling!” he protested, with drool all over his chin.

There was no need to point out the obvious lie. Otabek had caught Yuri red-faced and red-handed.

“Whatever,” Yuri blustered. He turned away and stared determinedly out the window. 

Otabek smirked and returned to his sudoku. He crossed out the accidental 7 and wrote 2 it its place, then peered at the flight path again. They were at only 28,000 feet. Maybe something to do with the mountain turbulence? He was no expert, but he’d flown enough to know that pilots sometimes adjusted their course over mountains to make turbulence easier on passengers.

“Beka,” Yuri said again as the plane bounced. He was still staring out the window. “Turbulence doesn’t crash planes, right?”

Now that much he knew. “No, Yura. Stupid pilots crash planes.”

“Right.” 

Yuri let out a long breath then turned his attention back to his iPod. In the skating world, Yuri was not known to be nervous, especially since he was always being compared to Katsuki Yuuri. But nobody was entirely without fears. Otabek considered reassuring him further, but it would probably have been excessive. Distraction might work better. 

“What do you think of Christophe’s short program?”

“Trashy,” Yuri grumbled, and Otabek knew he’d hit on a good topic. “His quads won’t mean shit if he relies on his ass to get the judges to look at him. And V-necks like that should stay at the fucking beach.”

Otabek ran through the other competitors they’d be facing at the Cup of China. 

“Guang-hong?”

“No confidence. Easy to forget. _Yawn_.”

“JJ?”

Yuri grinned wickedly. “He kept trying to pick a fight on Twitter before the Rostelecom Cup, but he hasn’t had much to say since you showed him who’s boss. Maybe he’s finally figured out when to stop running his mouth.”

It was difficult for Otabek not to smirk as he continued. Yuri was animated, and if the turbulence was still on his mind he wasn’t showing it. “What about Yuuri?”

“You think he’ll be able to do shit when Viktor’s not there?” Yuri snorted. Otabek considered warning him about the dangers of overconfidence, but when the time came, Yuuri’s performance would speak for itself. 

The minutes began to blend into monotony again as they debated the strengths and weaknesses of their fellow competitors. The turbulence faded, and without the bumps interrupting his train of thought every few seconds Otabek found himself reminiscing. 

His coach had advised against arriving in Moscow so early. _It will put you off your game, it’s better to train in Almaty, Plisetsky is a bad influence._

Maybe he was more transparent than he thought.

But then again, it had been Yuri’s idea to meet in Moscow, not his. Indeed, it had been Yuri who suggested a shared hotel room, who crawled into his bed to watch cat videos together until midnight, who spilled coffee on JJ in retaliation for calling Otabek a nobody. And it had been Yuri hugged him _hard_ as soon as he stepped off the podium with a gold medal around his neck. 

Otabek knew better than to fool himself into thinking those actions translated into reciprocation, though. He was Yuri’s only friend, as far as he knew, so of course the younger skater would be deeply attached. Besides, Otabek really was content to stay a friend. He’d had plenty of time for introspection during the summer, and he’d concluded that he was happy to let Yuri lead the way, no matter what direction that ended up being. Whatever other feelings he had weren’t as important as maintaining the connection they had built together. 

“Sir.”

The calm, professional tone of a flight attendant brought Otabek back to the present.

“Anything to eat or drink, sir?”

There hadn’t been a chance to check the menu, but he wasn’t all that hungry anyway. “Just a cup of coffee,” he decided. Something to keep him coherent after their chaotic morning rush.

The hostess reached into the cart. 

Half a second later an ear-splitting crash ripped through the cabin, and she was thrown into the next aisle. The plane lurched dangerously to the side.

Screams began to punctuate the hiss and screech of dying machinery. Freezing air whipped around the cabin, and Otabek was distantly aware of flight attendants shouting instructions. He had no idea what had just happened, but he knew it was _not normal_.

Oxygen masks descended from above. Adrenaline flushed through him as he fumbled to secure one of the devices, the jerking movements of the plane making it almost impossible to adjust. His head felt like it was full of helium but he bit his tongue and concentrated on looping the strap around his head and securing it until he was able to breathe again. 

Flight attendants darted through the plane helping other passengers. Luggage began to fall from the overhead compartments. Yuri was wild-eyed, his mask already on and pulled too tight. Fear had frozen him in place like a cornered animal.

Orange light flared on the other side of the cabin, and Otabek realized this was not the kind of accident that could be averted by making an emergency landing.

This couldn’t be real. 

The shuddering plane pitched to the other side, flying almost perpendicular to the ground. The blue sky outside dipped to show the cutting peaks of snow-capped mountains below and in that moment he saw, with dreadful clarity, the fatal razor’s edge they were walking. 

“Yura! Brace!” he hollered.

“I _am_!” Yuri cried. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he leaned against the seat in front of him. “Beka, fuck, we’re gonna _die_!”

The plane’s shaky descent dipped into a nosedive. 

This wasn’t happening. A sense of surreal distance took over as Otabek rested his forearms against the seat in front of him. 

Somewhere near the front of the plane a baby cried, its terrified screams rising above the havoc.

Otabek felt the plane veer out of the dive. For a brief, precious second, he thought they would be okay.

Then there was a lurch, a monstrous metal screech, and darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Knife shoes.](http://randomsplashes.tumblr.com/post/156553085924/a-concept-yurio-being-edgy-af-and-calling-his)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> A lot of research went into this fic, but I don't claim to be an expert of anything at all, so please do feel free to correct any errors you see!


	2. Stranded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a long chapter. 
> 
> Warning- this chapter is where the archive warning becomes relevant. Additionally, there will be descriptions of physical illness and throwing up from here onwards, so be aware.
> 
> Additionally- the characters in this fic are fallible and might not make the best life-or-death choices. This is not a "What To Do If Your Plane Crashes" manual.

Otabek woke to excruciating pain.

The memory of the crash came back in a rush. Against any form of better judgement he jerked upright and the agony doubled, tripled, tearing a broken cry from his throat. 

He stilled, swallowing down the pounding pulse in his mouth as he forced himself to assess the situation.

Moving his head brought no discomfort. It allowed him to see a ray of light, and as the tatters of his spatial awareness kicked in he realized he was upside down. 

Arms functional. Legs functional. With one hand he felt up and down his body, searching for open wounds. His chest and abdomen were fine, that was good, that was where the important parts were. As he felt up towards his shoulder he was met with a warped shard of metal and hot, sticky wetness that could only have been blood.

Alright. He was pinned. Otabek forced a long, slow breath out, only just beginning to realize how frigid the air was. Of course- they’d been flying over the Altai mountains when they crashed. But against all odds, he’d been lucky enough to wake up.

He didn’t know how long he had before nightfall, but if he didn’t get out from under the wreckage by then, the cold would kill him. There was no way around it. With no other options available, he pushed experimentally against the debris and it gave under the pressure; then, in a moment of foolishness, he shoved the metal off him only to be blinded by both the bright sky above and the paroxysm of pain in his shoulder. 

A scream rang out against the mountain silence, and he realized it was his own. 

_Alive. Alive._ Otabek wrangled his thoughts together. _The pain means you’re alive._ As his eyes adjusted to the light he rolled over and the burning in his shoulder met with blessed numbness.

He blinked until his vision- and reason- returned. Mountains laden with heavy snow stretched as far as he could see, and as he turned he took in the devastation of the wreckage. The fuselage had broken into two parts: only the shattered husk of a skeleton remained of the front half of the plane, but the backside lay relatively intact. It sat perpendicular to the bitter wind that whipped across the slopes, and if he was lucky, it might be sufficient shelter to survive a few days.

 _But will rescuers be that fast?_ Otabek wondered. Judging by the progress he’d been watching before they crashed, they’d landed squarely within the borders of the least populated country on earth.

It could take days for rescuers to arrive. Weeks. If a rescue effort was mounted at all. It’d be hard to blame authorities for thinking it impossible that anyone could survive such a terrible accident. 

That meant if he wanted to survive, he would have to make it on his own.

As soon as that thought crossed his mind, though, terror and realization stabbed him with far more force than the shrapnel had. He wasn’t alone, he hadn’t been alone.

“Yura!” 

The desperate voice didn’t sound like his own- it was like an echo, a mirage, didn’t feel _real_ as he struggled away from the machinery that’d pinned him. His hands plunged into snow and he waded through the crash site, dodging red stains and simmering patches of fire and searching for some sign, _any_ sign of his companion.

The snow below gave way to the soft warmth of a human, half-buried in the chaotic landing. Without thinking Otabek gripped the body and heaved it out into the open.

A weak and ashen Kaito Nakamura gasped for air. His chest rattled as he wheezed and clung to his rescuer.

It wasn’t Yuri, but just the sight of another survivor was enough to make Otabek’s eyes sting. He gritted his teeth and choked down a sob, rocking the other teen in his arms. 

“It’s s-so cold,” Kaito whimpered, staring in dismay at his gloveless hands. His fingers were red and swollen with the first signs of frostbite. 

Otabek twisted to push Kaito towards the intact half of the plane, ignoring the spike of pain in his shoulder. “Go. Get out of the wind,” he responded in English. “I’ll be there soon.”

The junior skater’s eyes glossed over in pain and doubt, but after a few seconds he nodded shakily and crawled on all fours towards the remains of the jet. 

Otabek’s shoulder throbbed as acute pain shot up and down his arm, and his mouth tasted like acid. But he forged on, crawling towards the shattered half of the cabin. 

No sign of Yuri, no flash of telltale leopard print. Otabek struggled onto his knees, then shakily stood to get a better view.

Debris, wreckage, and bodies all blended into a scene right out of a nightmare. In places the snow had melted away to reveal jagged rocks underneath. One outcropping was smeared with blood and flesh and Otabek swallowed thickly as nausea settled, cloying and oppressive, in the pit of his stomach.

At the bottom of the outcropping lay the shredded remains of a man who had been sitting across from him. Half his face was reduced to a mess of tissue and bone.

There was nothing he could do for him. 

He had to find Yuri.

Bodies and debris spilled out of the fuselage, and it was only then that he registered the stench of burnt flesh hanging leathery and sickly-sweet in the air. The patches of flame could be killing anyone too slow to outrun them. Panic clawed down his throat in a ragged gasp. 

None of the bodies moved as Otabek staggered towards them. “Yura,” he wheezed. 

The wind sang back to him, empty, foreboding, merciless. Heavy sorrow danced on his chest, waiting to crush what hope he still clung to. But he wouldn’t give up. Not until he knew for sure. “Yura!”

From behind, a weak warble, distorted on the wind and almost out of earshot, returned his cry.

Otabek wheeled around, stumbling through the snow and remains of luggage. He didn’t stop or think, just fought the wreckage and the sharp pain jolting through his body as he made his way towards the source of the sound.

One of the jet’s wings rested a few yards away, propped up by debris. Vivid red blood seeped into the snow, and Otabek realized grimly suitcases and plane parts weren’t all that had been pinned.

“Hello?” he called tentatively, first in Russian. After a few seconds he tried in English and then in Kazakh. Silence. 

Otabek bit the inside of his cheek. He was a fool to think anyone was alive under that wing, and moreso to believe his senses when he was standing, injured and in shock, at this high an altitude. Nobody had been calling out for help- the wind had just been playing tricks on him.

Despair finally overwhelmed the last tatters of hope he had been clinging to, and a sob wrenched its way from his chest as he staggered over to the wing. Sooner or later his frantic search would end, he knew that because he wasn’t going to fucking give up until he found Yuri, but then what? Bury him? Hold his mangled body and cry?

The faltering murmur trembled in the wind again, and damn him, Otabek _dove_ for the wing.

A woman in a green windbreaker lay cold and motionless, wedged between two piles of carry-on baggage. He wrapped his good arm around the corpse’s neck and heaved.

It gave much more easily than he would have expected, and when he turned back he realized why. She had been ripped in two, and a raw fetor filled the air as intestines spilled out of her body cavity. Otabek turned to the side and retched compulsively as his nausea bubbled over and bile filled his throat.

And then a cough rose up from below the gutted remains.

Otabek scrambled, burying his hands in viscera as he shoved the rest of the corpse out of the way. 

Bright green eyes blinked away the sunlight, and he knew.

“Yura.”

Ignoring the violent protest from his shoulder, Otabek took hold of Yuri with both hands, dragging him from the wreckage. “Yura,” he repeated breathlessly. “I thought you were dead, fucking hell!” He didn’t realize tears were streaming down his cheeks until he saw them fall onto the bloodied face below. 

Yuri’s cracked and bloody lips curled into a ghost of a smile. “Beka.”

He was caked in half-dried blood from his head to his midsection. Both his legs were twisted at unnatural angles and one forearm was bent in an obvious break, and altogether he looked exactly the way one would expect a plane crash survivor to look. But he was alive.

Relief made him light-headed as he hugged the smaller skater to his chest, shaking with weak sobs. Otabek would have given the world to just stay there and _hold_ him, but he knew it was too dangerous. The frigid wind would sap their energy and leave them both dead if they stayed out here in the open overnight. 

He knelt and brushed blood-soaked hair from Yuri’s forehead, ignoring the flecks of blood and vomit on his own face. . “I have to move you, Yura. But if you feel any sharp pain in your abdomen, you tell me _immediately_ , okay?”

“Everything already hurts,” Yuri moaned softly. “And I’m freezing… I don’t want to die, Beka.”

“We’ll be fine,” Otabek insisted, projecting an intense but utterly fictitious confidence. He propped Yuri up with his knee and put his arms under the other teen’s shoulders. 

The second he began to pull, Yuri wailed and spasms shook his broken body. “My legs,” he gasped. “I can’t. Please.”

“You can. We have to keep moving.” Otabek clenched his teeth. This wasn’t going to be pleasant for either of them, but people in situations like these didn’t survive by shrinking from adversity.

He pulled again. Hoarse screaming rang in his ears but he shut it out, focused on putting one foot behind the other. He wasn’t losing Yuri to some… to some fucking _plane crash_. What kind of bullshit.

Otabek let his rage at their helpless situation fuel him. He lurched backward, dragging Yuri over suitcases and bodies until his back finally met the cold metal of the battered jet. 

Yuri sobbed as they stumbled into the interior through a person-sized hole in the fuselage. The second they were out of the gale Otabek let him down softly and held him as tight as he dared, careful not to jostle their injuries. The stench of death was present here too, but no longer unbearable.

“I’m sorry, Yura,” he breathed. It was still sinking in that they were both alive, together, after plummeting tens of thousands of feet and crashing into a mountainside. 

Yuri’s voice cracked as he spoke. It was weak, like the dying embers of a fire. “I couldn’t breathe... I thought… and I was just… I was just waiting to die, there was nothing I could do.” He bent his head but a pitiful noise, half-sob and half-whimper, slipped through. “You saved my life.”

“You’re safe now. We’re both safe.” Otabek settled down next to Yuri, blocking him from the gusts that managed to penetrate the broken walls of the wreck. They weren’t safe. Their chances of survival were still, he knew, just about zero to none. But Yuri was too shaken to properly understand the magnitude of their situation, and Otabek wasn’t about to drag him down to share in the dismal reality they now faced. No matter how bad it got, so long as blood still pumped through his veins, he wouldn’t succumb to despair. For Yuri’s sake. 

Pressure settled on his shoulder, accompanied by just the barest flicker of warmth, and he turned to see Yuri leaning on him. Hiding in the crook of his neck, blocking out the agony and the trauma with what comfort was left in their small, bleak world. 

Otabek shut his eyes and wrapped Yuri into a careful hug. He’d have to scour the wreckage for supplies, check and tend to Yuri’s injuries, figure out how they were going to survive come nightfall. Find a way to take care of his own wounds so that he didn’t die before he could save Yuri. 

But he couldn’t tear himself from the waning light of the vibrant, fervent soul in his arms. Not right away. 

So they sat: hopeless, hidden, dead to the world.

 

The solemn grey of snow-laden clouds had been replaced by a magnificent red sunset before Otabek finally managed to pull himself from Yuri’s side. His thin chest rose and fell slowly, breaths even and reliable enough that Otabek was comfortably confident he wouldn’t find him cold and lifeless when he returned. 

There was work to be done if they were going to get off this mountainside alive, but foremost in his mind was the threat of the coming night. He was no expert in mountain weather, but he knew this much: it would be _bitterly_ cold.

The devastation lying all around them could be given purpose again, though, and it might just be enough to keep the frostbite at bay. Otabek set to work with grim determination, removing dead bodies and searching for winter clothing or any other potential supplies.

There was little left intact among the skeletal frames of seats, but he was lucky enough to find a red women’s jacket that felt as though it was lined with goose down. He wrapped it around Yuri’s shoulders and returned to his search.

In at least a half hour of searching, though nothing nearby proved useful, so he picked his way towards the back of the plane. It’d have been a better place to leave Yuri, since the cabin’s walls were in better shape, but he couldn’t bear to move him again. _And it could be dangerous,_ an anxious voice at the back of his head reminded him. _He could have internal bleeding. In fact, he could be dying already, and there’s nothing you could do._

 _Fuck you,_ he responded, and shut the fear out of his mind.

“H-hey.” 

Otabek jumped, losing his balance and nearly falling into the perilously uneven wreckage.

Kaito crawled out from behind two damaged seats, wearing a fleecy winter coat that resembled the one Otabek had just found. His frostbitten fingers were now covered in gloves, and he wore a thick trapper hat on his head. “I found two people, a Russian couple. One of them is hurt really bad, though.” He lowered his eyes. “I don’t think he’ll make it through the night.” 

He’d forgotten all about Kaito, and here the kid had been all along, helping other survivors. Guilt welled like black ink in the corners of his mind, but he chased it right back out. He knew, logically, that he should have been helping Kaito. But he didn’t regret staying with Yuri, not in the fucking least. 

“That makes five of us,” he finally responded, keeping the rest of his thoughts very adamantly to himself. “Yuri’s alive, but he’s not in good shape. He’s got broken legs and a broken arm, probably more.”

Kaito nodded numbly. “M-maybe you can join us? We were thinking, three people huddling together will be warmer at night…”

Otabek sighed. “He won’t be happy moving again. I’ll talk to him and we’ll join you later.”

Kaito hummed and nodded, then scurried towards the other side of the plane and vanished from sight. Otabek couldn’t help but notice the droplets of blood left in his wake and the way his chest rattled with every breath he took.

His mind flashed back to Yuri, but he bit down on his tongue to derail the train of thought before it lost control. For now, food and water, and then he could take Yuri to join up with the others. 

Otabek let autonomy reign over conscious thought as rummaged through the wreckage. There were plenty of clothes lying around, enough to build a makeshift bed. They’d be useful later, but he left them for now and trudged on until he found what he was looking for. 

A battered snack cart lay upside-down between the twisted metal frames of two seats, surrounded by two corpses lying face down. He clenched his jaw and knelt, knowing he’d have to move them in order to get to the cart’s contents. 

The second he put a hand on the nearest body’s wrist, she started and groaned, and Otabek jolted and nearly pitched backwards before catching himself by leaning on the cart. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before recovering some semblance of composure and setting her down gently instead. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, defaulting to English. “I thought you were…”

Her sudden death grip on his shoulder interrupted him. “My fiancé. Please.”

Otabek exhaled slowly as his eyes wandered lower, fixing on the red mess pooling below her abdomen. A quiver invaded his voice, against his best efforts. “Where is he?”

“Tell him Li Mingxia loves him. Please.”

The woman’s grasp weakened, and understanding settled cold and hard in Otabek’s chest. 

“I will,” he promised as he took her hand in his own and knelt beside her. 

Seconds trickled into minutes but she said no more, just staring at him through clouded eyes. Her mouth opened now and again, as though she was fighting to form words, but no words, no noise at all rose from her throat. Her chest shuddered as her breaths grew more laborious, until she finally stilled and her hollow gaze settled on the heavens.

Once he was sure she had passed, Otabek finally let his facade crumble. Cold shocks ran from his face to his feet and his hands wouldn’t stop shaking no matter how hard he tried to still them. Away from Kaito, away from Yuri, he curled in on himself and let stinging hot tears flow in earnest.

A woman had just died in front of him. 

When he was twelve, he had attended his grandmother’s funeral. He had trained his face into blank solemnity, accepted the permanence of death, mourned in private after the service. 

It hadn’t been like this.

The tears stung his wind-burned face and he wiped them away on his sleeve. The corpses were one thing. He could avoid looking at their faces, pretend they were mannequins, ignore that they had had families and names and hopes and dreams. But the way the soul had drained from behind her eyes, replaced with a glassy emptiness, would stay with him forever.

“Li Mingxia,” he whispered hoarsely. He rested one hand like a feather on her chest, and with the other he shut her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Only the foreboding whistle of the gale outside the cabin answered him. 

Otabek focused on breathing, in and out, grasping at the self-control that was so familiar, that it felt so wrong to be without. He couldn’t let this shake him, couldn’t lose himself to grief and despair and rage at the cosmic forces that had let all of this happen. No, right now he had to be strong for the others. Kaito was just a child, and Yuri, _his Yura,_ was so terribly injured that…

An image of blank green eyes assaulted his mind, vivid emerald gone cold and lifeless like the ones he had just closed. 

His throat constricted as another sob wrenched its way from his core, but he bit his tongue and focused on the pain until it dwindled. Yuri was _alive,_ and that wasn’t going to change if Otabek had any say in the matter. 

 

When Otabek was sure he had regained his composure, he gathered what he could from the cart and laid it in a neat pile- away from the bodies- then stood and made his way back to the front of the cabin. He noted the locations of other potential supplies, glad to focus on anything but the hopelessness of the situation they had been thrust into. 

“Beka.” Yuri was awake and his voice was weary with a heavy bone-tiredness that ran far deeper than exhaustion after practice ever had. “Let’s go. Before I change my mind.”

It took Otabek a moment to realize that Kaito must have visited. The kid was fast, given those injuries were worse than he was letting on. That or he had spent a longer time with the woman than he’d realized.

“Fair enough.” He wasn’t about to refuse, not when sleeping in a pile with other survivors could mean the difference between life and death once the sun had set. 

Yuri’s infamous temper was nowhere to be found as Otabek supported his back with one arm and his legs with the other. The blond just gritted his teeth when Otabek stood and began stepping carefully over the wreckage.

Unlike last time he remained silent even as his face contorted in pain, and Otabek realized _Yuri_ was trying to be strong for _him_. His heart felt like it had been clenched in a vicegrip- how could Yuri summon such strength when he was so small, so hurt, so hopeless? 

He knew the answer, of course. But all these years later, it still astounded him.

By the time they reached the backside of the jet, silent tears rolled down Yuri’s cheeks and his face was buried once again in the crook of Otabek’s neck. Kaito sat with an auburn-haired woman, his face pale as he managed a weak smile and wave.

“I’m going to sit down,” Otabek warned, and once he felt Yuri nod he sat down as smoothly as he could manage. Yuri dug his nails into his back, still unspeaking, but let out a long, shuddering breath when they finally stopped moving.

Otabek kept Yuri bundled in his arms, unwilling to risk setting him down and hurting him after all the effort they’d just put into getting to this side of the wreck. His stomach was starting to ache and he knew they’d need food and drink soon, but he could allow himself just a hair’s breadth of room for Yuri’s emotional well-being now that there were others to help carry the burden of survival.

He took in the new surroundings. The walls of the fuselage were mostly intact, like he’d hoped, and a couple nearby seats still had enough cushioning to function as makeshift beds if they had it in them to remove the long-dead passengers still strapped in by their belts. 

In the middle of the cabin, where the aisle had been, Kaito and the couple had built a veritable nest of salvaged clothing that might just mean the difference between life and death once night fell. Otabek nodded to himself, as satisfied as he could be given the situation.

Kaito spoke after a moment. “This is Nadia, and that’s Andrei.”

It took a moment to realize the pile of luggage and insulation next to the two had a human occupant, his face more grey than pink, his lips dangerously blue. Otabek shared a grim, knowing look with Kaito. 

The wind outside whistled, Andrei shuddered as he fought for every breath. Nadia began crying quietly. 

Minutes blended into hours. Kaito got up to bring back food. They ate and huddled for warmth and tried to sleep.

Nobody asked the question that lingered in their thoughts, dangerous and seductive.

_How long will we make it?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm actually posting this chapter with the next one only half done, so it might take longer for that one to come out. Also, I'm not 100% sure of how long this fic will be yet, but right now it will probably end up four or five chapters plus an epilogue. 
> 
> If you know any Russian or Kazakh lullabies that Otabek might have grown up with, hmu. I've researched a few but it's hard to figure out how likely it is that your average person from around those parts would know 'em. 
> 
> As for why I'd like to have him singing a lullaby, I'll leave that to your imagination, but take heart! This fic is tagged Survival for a reason.


	3. Once a Hero

The five survivors of the crash had spent the night huddled in their nest of debris, shivering as they took what little comfort they could in each others’ body heat. Abyssal skies softened to pillowy grey as a snowy morning dawned.

Otabek was the first to wake, and it was immediately apparent to him that today was going to be just as dangerously cold as yesterday. Although he had fallen asleep with his hands entangled in Yuri’s, both under three layers of debris, his fingertips were red and tender and bitterly sensitive to the cold as he climbed out of the nest and stood.

It was foolish to be disappointed that he hadn’t been woken by the sound of helicopters, and he chastised himself for thinking any sort of rescue effort could possibly penetrate the volatile alpine weather they now found themselves in. It wasn’t childish hope that would keep them alive on this hellish mountainside. It was determination, and Otabek intended to get them all out of here alive.

Somehow. 

What he did know was that standing around just waiting for death or rescue wouldn’t solve any of the myriad problems they faced, so he climbed out of the huddle as best he could and left the others to sleep. 

Even though they’d eaten last night, hunger chewed away at his insides like a hungry wolf. All of them had to eat, but at least food wasn’t running short. A seven hour flight with two hundred passengers would have to be stocked well, right? If their current source ran out he’d go find a new one and let the others stay inside where it was warm. Besides Nadia, nobody else was in any state to be exploring the crash site. 

Ever since his talent was discovered and the sponsorships and competitions began, Otabek had gladly carried the weight that came with being a national hero. The pressure was immense, yes, but it was never more than he could handle. Now that fate had catapulted him into this, as though testing his true mettle, he didn’t intend to act any differently. _Once a hero, always a hero,_ he told himself. _You have the willpower to save them. So save them._

The snack cart was in the same place he’d left it, as were the crackers. Bottles of water and cans of soda lay scattered in the debris along with junk food and packaged meals, but the bread rolls Kaito had brought back last night were now few and far between. It was possible that the rest of the food was still intact somewhere else in the wreckage, but for the time being, this was what they had to work with.

Otabek took two bottles of water, a frozen pan of garden salad, and a chocolate bar and hugged them single-handedly against his chest. He could come back for more later, but there was no sense in using his weakened arm if he could avoid it. 

Now that he’d left the warmth of the nest they had built, Otabek realized just how hard it was going to be to avoid frostbite. His ears burned and his toes were nearly impossible to move, and the blazer he’d worn yesterday morning did little to keep the wind from wrapping its frigid fingers around his shoulders. If they hadn’t taken refuge in the cabin, he had no doubt they’d have been dead by now. 

When he returned to the shelter they’d made, Yuri was awake, rubbing his eyes with one hand and keeping his broken arm buried under the coats and sweaters. He’d pulled his arms and torso into the open but kept his broken legs hidden. Even so, he looked terrible: dried blood still caked his face and hair and the ivory skin of his arm had gone red and swollen where the bone had cracked. 

Despite it all, he smiled weakly at Otabek’s approach. “Morning.”

“Hey. I brought you breakfast.” Otabek kept a straight face as he set the food down next to Yuri, though just the sight of him brought a muddled rush of fear, pity, and sorrow. 

The younger skater blinked. “You didn’t have to…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Otabek murmured. He sat down on Yuri’s other side and cupped his friend’s ears with his hands in a feeble attempt to warm them. “We need to find hats,” he continued, sparing a sideways look at Kaito’s sleeping form. “And gloves or mittens.” 

Yuri nodded feebly. He picked up the chocolate bar and set it in his lap then pulled haplessly at the wrapper, his fingers shaking and stiff. A low hiss was enough to convince Otabek to intervene; he peeled the wrapping away for him and held it up to his mouth, offering wordlessly to help him eat. 

Instead of accepting help, though, Yuri seemed indecisive. He blinked slowly and lifted a trembling hand to brush a frozen strand of hair behind his ear. Otabek waited, letting the silence rest heavy on their shoulders until Yuri finally spoke.

His voice was small. “Beka, I don’t want to die here. But-”

“You won’t,” Otabek interjected, his voice firm. 

“But if I do, I-”

 _“No.”_

The desperation in his voice left them both wide-eyed and speechless. Regret welled in his chest- he knew better than this, should have had the self-control to keep his fears to himself. But that bridge was burned now, so rather than stand down, Otabek planted his hand firmly on Yuri’s uninjured shoulder. Intense brown eyes met misty green. “I’m not letting you die, Yura. I’ll carry you down this mountain myself if I have to.”

Yuri’s eyes shone stark and vivid against the filth on his face, filling quickly with unshed tears. The wind outside began to moan, and he was _almost_ able to hide the quaver in his voice. “Then you’re not allowed to die either. Promise.”

“I promise.” Otabek’s grip softened and he rubbed his thumb in circles. Seeing Yuri in such terrible shape hurt almost physically; though yesterday had been a whirlwind of pain and terror and disbelief, it was easier to collect his thoughts today, and he decided it was time to see what he could do about both their injuries.

“You know,” he ventured, taking a yellow cardigan from the pile and rolling it in snow. “We should get that blood off your face.”

Yuri’s shoulders stiffened as he tensed. “No, it’s okay. You need to take care of yourself too.”

The ploy was obvious. Otabek made his intentions clear and lifted the cardigan anyway, his eyes narrowing as suspicion began to bloom. “Yuri,” he warned.

“Fine,” Yuri mumbled, avoiding eye contact. “But only if you clean up your shoulder too.” He nodded to the wound Otabek had nearly forgotten about. It wasn’t all that painful anymore, so long as he didn’t put weight on it; the yellowing bruises all over his body were far more aggravating. Yuri was right, though, so he hummed in agreement then set to using the wet sweater to clean the caked blood from Yuri’s face.

The left side of his face was soft and unharmed, marred only by windburn, but the right side was another matter. Otabek began to worry as red welts revealed themselves, finally culminating in an angry red gash that started behind his ear and curled almost to his forehead. As he patted it, drops of fresh blood bloomed like bright, terrible flowers against the blanched skin of Yuri’s scalp. 

“Yura…” he breathed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You had enough to worry about. It’s not killing me or anything!” Yuri protested, flinching as Otabek tried to clean the wound. “It’s fine, Beka, it’s barely even bleeding anymore.”

It wasn’t the wound itself that concerned Otabek, however. To his credit, Yuri was probably right that it no longer posed a threat. No, it was the fact that he’d hidden it that was concerning. He finished cleaning the dried blood away then set the cardigan down.

Carefully, as though touching glass, he brushed Yuri’s uninjured cheek with the back of one finger. “Yura, I understand what you were trying to do. But we can’t keep things from each other. It could end up killing us. We need to work with each other, or we could end up working _against_ each other without even knowing it.”

Yuri avoided eye contact, and for a moment, Otabek worried he would disagree. But after seconds that felt like centuries he leveled his gaze and nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Good.” Otabek stood and leaned against the cabin wall to pat down his shoulder wound. The contact stung, but through careful prodding and exploration he managed to discern that it wasn’t as deep as he’d first thought. Not enough to cause any serious damage, if his ability to ignore it was any indication of its severity.

Yuri sat and watched him, his face inscrutable, before finally turning to nudge Kaito’s sleeping form. “Hey. Sun’s up.”

Kaito didn’t move, and for a split second Otabek feared he hadn’t made it through the night. He was met with a vision of the trail of blood droplets Kaito had left in the snow yesterday. Had he been so preoccupied with Yuri that he’d let the other young skater die on his watch?

But Yuri prodded him again, rougher this time, and finally roused him from his deep sleep.

The junior was pale and his eyes unfocused. It all but confirmed Otabek’s fear that there was something very wrong with him. He’d bring it up today, when they were more awake.

“Hey,” Kaito mumbled as he shifted to rouse the Russian couple. “Rise and shine, you guys. Maybe someone will come get us today.” 

Otabek decided it was best not to mention that no helicopters would be arriving in this weather. There was no sense in bringing them down like that unless the circumstance demanded it. He tossed the wet cardigan over the metal frames where seats had once been then sat down between Yuri and Kaito, making a mental checklist of everything he might be able to do to increase their chances of survival for another night. 

He’d hardly formed any sort of plan at all when a voice rose up in agony. Kaito left his side to support Nadia as she clutched the stiff, lifeless body of her lover.

“Andrei,” she pleaded, over and over again. “Andrei, please, Andrei.”

Otabek felt numb. _Why doesn’t she just shut up,_ he wondered, then found himself startled by the callous thought. It was hard to focus, and he wondered distantly if he was finally shutting down. 

Nothing stirred in him as he watched Kaito rub Nadia’s back, as she buried herself in his chest and sobbed; even the sight of Yuri, his eyes screwed shut and his hands trembling, did nothing to evoke any emotion. 

He listened to the howl of the wind outside the fuselage as Nadia’s sobs slowly petered out into hiccups. They were wasting time with this, precious time that could have been spent on keeping the rest of them alive.

Irritation prickled like heat in his cheeks. _Enough of this._

“I’ll go bury him.” 

One, three, six seconds passed as Otabek met the others’ uncomfortable gazes. Finally Nadia wiped her tears on her sleeve and nodded mutely from behind limp brown hair. 

As Otabek knelt and dug the body from the nest, Yuri gripped his forearm and squeezed, demanding attention. 

Their eyes met. Despite the way his brows knit in concern, something was unbearably soft in Yuri’s expression, and Otabek clenched his teeth as he broke eye contact. 

_Damn you,_ he thought, shaking his arm from the smaller skater’s grasp. _Just let me do this, Yura._

Without further delay he took a firm hold on the frozen corpse’s feet and dragged it down the aisle. He could hear Nadia beginning to cry again, made out words like ‘soon’ and ‘goodbye’ as he left her and the others behind. Something that might have been guilt licked at his underside like cold flames but he couldn’t afford to let self-doubt get the better of him, not here, not now.

The exertion, coupled with dehydration and hunger, had him gasping for breath by the time he finally got it outside. A dead body was a lot heavier than it looked, but at least the snow that’d blown inside overnight had made for easier traction.

Otabek turned his head to search for a good place to bury Andrei, and that was when he noticed the odor.

Jet fuel, burnt flesh, blood, and bile all swarmed his senses and transformed into a noxious cocktail. It was twice as strong as yesterday and before he could stop himself he was on his knees, gagging on the sour taste of his own vomit. 

He swore violently as he coughed away the remains of all he’d had to eat yesterday. This was no good- if he kept losing fluids he would be in no better shape than the others. 

Some hero he was. Couldn’t even keep a meal down let alone provide any sort of protection or comfort. 

The body still lay where he’d left it. Otabek took a handful of snow and wiped his mouth clean then set his mind to the task ahead with dull, empty determination. No matter if he ran out of every other emotion known to him- at least he still had that.

The snow stung as he moulded it around Andrei’s arms and legs but he continued sporadically, stopping only to breath life into his hands or bury them in the pockets of his jacket. The latter offered little protection, but it was better than nothing.

Once the face was covered, Otabek struggled to his feet, ignoring aching joints and numb toes. It would have to do- he couldn’t stay out here in this deathly stench. Couldn’t be left alone with the fear that threatened to break the ramparts he had so carefully constructed.

A foreboding wall of silence met him upon his return. Someone had brought back more food but the other survivors hardly ate: Kaito’s eyes were unfocused, as though he was somewhere else, and Nadia stared emptily at where Andrei’s body had lain. Blond locks, still streaked with red, were all to be seen of Yuri as he hid in the pile of fabrics that had become their lifeline. 

Silence wouldn’t get them anywhere. Otabek was finding himself increasingly fed up- how could they just resign themselves to whatever chance threw at them? Did they even want to be rescued?

“There’s work to be done,” he muttered. “We can’t just sit around and wait to die.”

Kaito spoke up from where he was hunched over. “Well… we crashed in Mongolia, I think? Otabek, you’re from around here, right?”

“I’m from Kazakhstan,” Otabek snapped. “But it’s nice to know my country is so forgettable.”

The pile of clothes shifted and he caught a cautionary blink from Yuri. It did little to stem the flow of his frustration, though, and he very nearly continued before the hurt, distant expression on Kaito’s face stopped him.

“I’m sorry,” the young skater mumbled, eyes downcast. “I wasn’t… nothing sounds right in my head. I just thought, if we knew where to go we could climb down the mountain to get help…”

 _Not likely,_ Otabek thought. Yuri wasn’t in any state to travel, and if Yuri couldn’t leave, then he wasn’t leaving either. He didn’t trust him to stay alive on his own until help arrived.

He gathered his thoughts before speaking this time. It’d be about impossible to really assess the situation if he didn’t bury his anger first. “It was a big jet carrying a lot of passengers. People are bound to know we crashed by now. They might even be looking already. It’s just a matter of waiting for the weather to clear so helicopters can get up here.”

“But if we could just find a town nearby…” Kaito ventured.

“I’ll go.”

All heads turned to Nadia. She was expressionless, still staring at the empty space where Andrei had lain. 

Otabek shook his head. “It’s too cold. You wouldn’t make it.”

Nadia stood and brushed snow off her jeans. “I’ll be okay. My coat’s warm. Look, I can’t… just stay here. Where he died.”

“Nadia…” A panicky mewl rose in Kaito’s voice. When he swallowed it down, his face twisted in pain. “It’s not supposed to be a suicide mission. Come back if it gets too hard to keep going, okay? Please.”

“Take water and food,” Otabek added, shuffling over to the leftovers of what he’d brought Yuri earlier that morning. He offered her a water bottle and the frozen salad and she took them reluctantly, avoiding eye contact. 

“If I have to,” she sighed. The weight in her voice went beyond exhaustion and grief, and Otabek paused, wondering what she meant. 

Yuri and Kaito shared a silent look, as though they were privy to some secret that Otabek couldn’t quite piece together.

“I really think you should stay,” Yuri murmured, gazing at Nadia with those intense green eyes.

There was definitely something going on between the lines. But the answer to the question on his tongue seemed hopelessly out of reach, shrouded by a thick smog of pain and hunger and exhaustion.

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

With those parting words hanging in the cold air, leaden with meaning, she slipped out of a hole in the fuselage and disappeared into the snow. 

Yuri stifled a sob. Kaito leaned over, wincing as he pulled him into a hug.

“Hey, it’s okay,” the Japanese skater murmured, patting the uninjured side of Yuri’s head. “She might come back. Maybe she’ll find someone. Cold doesn’t bother Russians, right?”

Yuri nodded mutely and hid his face in the thick fabric of Kaito’s jacket.

Only then did the puzzle pieces click into place. Otabek went cold with shock and struggled almost immediately to his feet, but just as he steadied himself he toppled forward and nearly collided with the others, his legs numb and heavy beneath him. 

With a heave that left his muscles screaming, he managed to crawl to the hole where Nadia had left, but the only sign of her was footprints that were already beginning to fade under the thick, silencing snowfall.

 _How far the great hero has fallen,_ a sly voice in his head derided. _Won’t even stop someone’s suicide mission._

This time, Otabek had no witty riposte. He was too tired to keep sparring with his own mind. His barriers toppled and hot shame washed over him in waves, burning his cheeks and stinging his eyes as he sunk back down to his hands and knees. Hot tears began spilling over and rolling down his face, pooling at the bottom of his chin.

“Why didn’t I stop her?” he wheezed. He didn’t expect an answer, and none came. He clenched his hands into fists and punched the debris and packed snow below. “What the fuck is wrong with me? I just let her… I just…”

A gentle touch on his shoulder broke his concentration but Otabek scrambled away, unwilling to submit to comfort he’d done nothing to deserve. His nose and cheeks itched and he knew by now he was probably a disgusting mess but he didn’t care, he’d been strong for too long and now his insistence on maintaining his composure, on being a bulwark for the others instead of just _asking what was going on,_ had probably gotten someone killed. 

His throat burned as hoarse words found their way out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, fuck, it’s not enough. I’m not enough.”

Yuri’s mouth was moving but Otabek couldn’t make out his words, could hardly hear him at all. He covered his face. “I let them both die!” he cried. _Failure. Nobody. Not a hero._

And if he had let Andrei and Nadia die, then that meant Kaito and Yuri were next. What fucking use was a promise if he was too weak to keep it?

“ _Beka._ ” 

This time Yuri’s voice cut through the panic like scissors through paper. Otabek let his arm fall back down by his side only to find that they were now face-to-face. The realization that Yuri must have crawled over on his broken legs brought another helpless sob bubbling up. The urge to stifle it returned, because fuck, he couldn’t lose it like this, not in front of Yuri--

Warmth blossomed in his forehead, and he stilled. Seconds passed before Otabek registered that Yuri was kissing him, and even when it hit, he could do nothing but sit numbly and wonder why.

“It’s okay, Beka. We’re all scared.” Yuri wobbled into a seated position then pulled Otabek into a weak one-armed hug. He felt his companion leaving gentle kisses on his jaw, his ear, anywhere within reach. “I know it’s hard being strong all the time. But making a mistake doesn’t mean it’s over. It’s like falling. You just get up and try again.”

Making any kind of comparison to skating when they were stranded on a mountainside after a plane crash seemed absurd, and a chuckle bubbled up from Otabek’s chest before he could think to contain it. Another followed, carrying with it the weight of a sob, and then they were crying together, and Yuri’s forehead was pressed against his and he remembered his promise not to despair.

“We’re gonna make it,” Yuri vowed. “And we’re gonna skate again, both of us. Together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, Otabek.
> 
> I seriously considered leaving this chapter on a big cliffhanger, but it would have ended up moving the plot too fast, so enjoy the eye of the storm while it lasts~


	4. Yuri's Lullaby

It had been hours since Nadia left, and the three remaining survivors had long since given up hope that she would return. Once Otabek had carried Yuri back to the pile of fabrics, they had all huddled together for warmth. None of them had the energy or the will to speak, so they let silence hang heavy and oppressive around them. 

Otabek busied himself with the health of the other skaters. As downy skies faded to snow-flecked, sooty grey, he stood and foraged three cans of soda and the packet of crackers from earlier, all the while focusing determinedly on surviving the night ahead. Thinking any further than that left him vulnerable to fear and hopelessness, and he couldn’t afford either when he was the only one physically capable of caring for the others. He’d also helped them to relieve themselves and dispose of the waste away from where they rested- it wasn’t pleasant by any stretch of the imagination, but it was better than soiling their shelter.

One foot in front of the other. One step at a time. Whatever it took to get them out of here alive, he’d do it. 

Frozen gusts buffeted the fuselage, and the wreck groaned at the pressure. It probably wasn’t completely stable, but their only other option was to wander out into the deadly mountain cold. There was no reasonable choice but to take their chances inside. Otabek shut his eyes and hid his face in the torn, spongy fabric of a ruined seat, wincing at the stinging contact with his wind-burned cheeks.

They lay indefinitely, still as statues but for the occasional attempt to dig deeper into their shelter. Otabek’s mind wandered, conjuring up countless images. Running through the streets with his cousins during Nauryz, chasing delicious scents that beckoned them to food carts. Sneaking with new friends into a restricted pool area to escape a sweltering Californian afternoon. The way his mother’s crow’s feet would crinkle as she told him how proud she was of him. 

He wondered if he would ever have another chance to tell her how much he loved her.

The fear was unwelcome, but when it began to coil around him and smother the perilous hold he had on his self-control he found he no longer had the energy to stop it.

Blessed distraction came in the form of a tentative hand on his shoulder. “H-hey, Otabek? I’m really s-sorry about what I said.”

His mind stalled for several seconds before he realized Kaito was talking about his earlier faux pas. 

“It’s fine,” he responded. “I shouldn’t have snapped, so we can call it even.”

Movement from behind told him Kaito was shifting positions. The Japanese skater had been still and silent for hours now, and Otabek still hadn’t decided whether to leave him be or press him for answers. But if he was still able to move without crying out, maybe he was healthier than Otabek had suspected. 

As Kaito stirred and Otabek shifted to accommodate the movement, Yuri let out a weak groan. He had been resting his head in Otabek’s lap and dozing fitfully, but now he blinked sluggishly and wiped frosty crystals from his eyelashes. “Beka? What time d’you think it is?” he slurred.

Otabek spared a glance toward the other side of the wreck. “Evening,” he decided. That or it was just dark out, but everything was sore and cold and he didn’t want to move his mouth any more than he had to, so he let the assumption stand on its own.

“It’ll be night soon,” Kaito fretted. His voice was pinched, as though he was out of breath.

Yuri grimaced and and sat up shakily, seemingly unaware that the curl of his cracked lips was making them bleed. Otabek’s heart twisted painfully at the sight. “When they finally find us, we’ll be frozen solid,” the blond rasped. 

Otabek knew he should say something to reassure them, but nothing came to mind. Every time he tried to form words, clouds of fear, hunger, regret, and pain made coherence impossible.

“Hey, we can make it,” Kaito murmured. He shuffled into view so the three of them sat in a triangle, keeping one arm protectively over his midsection as he moved. Cold shock prickled up Otabek’s spine at the sight of him: healthy tan skin had greyed, inquisitive brown eyes were now expressionless, and he had shrunk into a defensive position so that he looked even smaller than he was. 

But despite it all, he still spoke with optimism. “Yuri, do you remember your short program last year? Your theme was love. Agape.”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I remember, during your performance at Barcelona, you looked.” Kaito paused and coughed, doubling over and wheezing as his body struggled under the tremors that shook it. Otabek rested a gentle hand on his back and rubbed until he was able to continue. “Different. Than when you were a junior.”

Yuri leaned against the pile of clothes and averted his gaze. “I guess. I don’t remember much, just that I was thinking about my grandpa and then everything went blank.”

Kaito managed a small nod. “You love him a lot?”

Yuri’s eyes clouded. “More than anything.”

“Then you can get through this and see him again.” The young skater reached over and laid a pale, shaky hand on Yuri’s shoulder. “I know it.”

“So do I.” Otabek hadn’t known what to say, but now he interjected softly. Anything to encourage Yuri to hold onto what little hope they’d managed to conserve. 

Yuri couldn’t summon a spoken response, but the steely weight in his eyes as he nodded said more than words ever could. Otabek wanted to hug him, to tell him how fucking _proud_ he was that nothing could tear away that will to keep fighting, that ardent fire he had fallen in love with.

The little reason he had left told him that such a dramatic proclamation would do none of them any good, though. It was as frivolous as his fantasies of food and warmth.

Instead he scrunched his eyes shut and summoned the mammoth resolve it took to stand up. 

“You two keep each other warm, okay? I’m going out to look for more supplies.”

“Beka, wait.” Yuri lifted a shaky hand and reached out. “It’s too cold… stay here, we’ll be fine.”

Otabek wasn’t sure if it was Yuri speaking, or his exhaustion and disorientation. He shook his head and leaned down to plant a gentle kiss on his friend’s head. “I’ll come back if it gets bad.”

Yuri’s hand wrapped around his forearm and pulled him closer. “That’s what Nadia said.”

Unease rippled through him. So it was, and she’d been gone so long now that there was no way she’d be coming back. But they could be dead by tomorrow morning if he didn’t use what daylight was left to bring back more insulation. With Kaito’s condition worsening, he suspected they might need a first aid kit soon as well. 

“I’m not going far, Yura,” Otabek insisted, gently prying his arm free. “I’ll be in earshot, so just shout if you need me, okay?”

Yuri was silent. He shifted, rested his forehead against Otabek’s shoulder. And finally nodded.

“Come back soon.”

Otabek forced a smile. “I will. Promise.”

Before Yuri had a chance to change his mind, he left the two in their den of debris and struggled over to the same hole Nadia had slipped through when she left. On this side of the plane, the stench of death was weaker, more bearable, but the wind was infused with the kind of cold that was dry and cut right to the bone. With only the light jacket he’d worn the morning of their doomed flight, he knew he wouldn’t be able to last long outside. But better to leave the warm winter coats with Yuri and Kaito; they needed the protection far more than he did.

As he bent against the wind and stepped out into the storm, Otabek wondered how much longer the three of them could last. 

Though he’d managed to maintain some brief hope that Kaito wasn’t doing as badly as he seemed, that had been shattered as soon as he saw the boy’s pallor. There was something he wasn’t telling them, and Otabek could only hope that bringing back a first aid kit, if he could find one, would draw answers from him.

Yuri was stable, at least. As far as Otabek knew, broken bones couldn’t suddenly catapult someone into a critical condition overnight. But the young champion had always been delicate, just thin white skin wrapped around lean muscle. If they ran out of food, there’d be no pockets of fat for him to fall back on. And Otabek could only imagine how horribly the cold was affecting him.

Could they outlast the weather? And if they did, would there be rescuers waiting for the opportunity to save them, as they so desperately hoped? What if they’d been wrong, and nobody knew where they were? What if searches had already been called off, and nobody was looking for them at all?

 _No, no,_ Otabek reminded himself. _You can’t afford to think like that. Just keep going forward._

Instead he put all his energy into scanning the wreckage for anything that could help, especially the telltale white cross of a first aid kit. Planes did carry those, didn’t they? Even if he’d have had more luck finding a proverbial needle in a haystack, it was better to keep an eye out. 

Flurries danced around the splintered remnants of the right wing, and Otabek shielded himself with his arm as he approached. He stepped over a sprawled body and found that it barely evoked even the faintest stirring in him- it was just another piece of debris, another obstacle to get past. Maybe that was normal, or maybe he was finally losing it. He didn’t want to bother thinking about it.

A flash of red under the wing led him to a small suitcase, still intact even after the crash. Otabek dug his feet into the snow and crouched down on groaning muscles, fighting shuddering hands and numb fingers as he unzipped it to rifle through the contents. 

A sleek black coat smiled back at him, and he couldn’t help his sharp gasp of relief as he slipped his arms into the sleeves and buttoned it up tight over his chest. The fit told him it was probably a woman’s. But he could breathe in it, that was what mattered. 

Beneath the coat Otabek found a tin of salted peanuts, a wad of casual clothing, and a toiletry bag. It was like his heart had made a new home in his throat as he went through it all. Everything was useful. He’d need to bring it all back. Carrying it would hurt, but fuck, it’d be worth it.

Inside the toiletry bag were the usual items, along with band-aids and a bottle of prescription medication written in Chinese and English. Otabek rolled it over in his hands, trying to figure out if it could be useful, when a name caught his attention and his gut clenched. He dropped the bottle. 

Li Mingxia. 

He couldn’t take it. His thoughts overloaded and his head felt like it was going to burst. Was fate just taunting him now? Laughing as it threw blow after merciless blow? 

Tears prickled, hot and malicious, at the corners of his eyes. For a brief second Otabek considered throwing the coat back down and leaving it all behind, but he couldn’t, he needed every advantage he could get his hands on if he was going to pull the three of them through this alive. 

He stared out at the mountainside, trying to get his panicked breathing under control. It hurt, being surrounded by reminders that he couldn’t save everyone. Hell, he couldn’t save anyone, hadn’t done anything to help Andrei or Nadia, and it made his chest ache worse than any fall ever had. 

Otabek knew he was crumbling under the pressure, knew he had to get his emotions back under control. But nothing like this had ever happened. His failures had never been so raw and real and _deadly_ before. 

A ragged cry on the wind tore Otabek from the tempest in his mind. He squinted into the sky, wondering if eagles or vultures had finally found the wreck, if they would even dare to fly in the storm.

It came again, and he realized the sound was his name.

His legs were moving before his brain caught up. Something was wrong, Yuri needed him. Or- or maybe, against all the odds, he’d seen a helicopter? Hope fluttered on diaphanous wings, beating against the walls of his chest as he sprinted back into the plane.

And then the wings were sheared away, his frail hope left in death throes as he was met with the sight of blood.

Yuri held Kaito in his arms, tears streaming down his cheeks as the younger teen vomited food and brown flecks of old blood. “Beka,” he screamed, “I-I don’t know what happened, h-he just, oh my god!”

Otabek fell to his knees and crawled over, grabbing a white t-shirt from their nest and using it to wipe the blood off of Kaito’s face and chest. “I’ve got you,” he said, struggling to maintain an air of confidence.

Kaito moaned incoherently, and Otabek shushed him. “No talking, just let us take care of you. Yura, hold his head and make sure he doesn’t choke.”

Yuri nodded through his tears and did his best to keep Kaito steady. “Is he going to be okay?”

 _No,_ Otabek thought grimly. _No, he’s been running on borrowed time ever since we crashed. Fuck._

“Maybe,” he answered.

The Japanese skater clutched Yuri’s shoulders, gazing up at them with terrified eyes. “I don’t want… to die,” he choked. 

Otabek swallowed thickly and shook his head. “Hey, I said no talking. Just stay still and…” 

He trailed off, realizing he had no idea what to say. Stay still and wait to die? Hope his internal injuries magically disappear? Pretend everything’s fine?

“Hold on,” Yuri begged. “Maybe we’ll get rescued in the morning. Just a bit longer, yeah?”

Kaito whimpered and ducked his head. Moments later, hot fluid splashed on Otabek’s legs and stained his jeans brown. The vomit looked more like coffee grounds than something a child had just heaved out of his body. Streaks of vivid red pooled starkly against the sickly brown.

Otabek knew the wet spots would freeze later and make it impossible to keep himself warm, but nevertheless he gently took Kaito from Yuri and held him in firm arms, keeping his head level so that he wouldn’t choke on his own spew.

The junior coughed out something in Japanese, and though Otabek didn’t understand the words, the desperation and terror were all too clear. 

The last of the day’s light began to fade as Kaito’s cries grew weaker. 

Yuri’s face was swollen and marked with red lines where tears had blazed through dead, peeling skin. His shoulders shook and he still murmured hopeless pleas, begging Kaito to stay alive.

Otabek had thought that after finding himself numb multiple times, he’d have run out of emotion. But no, of course not, he was a fool to keep hoping for anything except the worst possible outcome and now there was a knife twisting in his chest, wrenching sobs out of him and tearing him down so he couldn’t even put on a strong face for a dying boy. 

Yuri sniffled and ran a trembling hand through Kaito’s hair. He mumbled, too quiet to make out above the howling wind at first, but as his voice swelled Otabek realized he was singing.

_“I will tell you stories,_  
_I will sing you a song,_  
_Sleep on, close your eyes,_  
_Bayushki bayu.”_

Otabek blinked through his tears. The tune was familiar, the words in Russian. But he’d never heard Yuri sing before. His voice was soft, gentle, nothing like Otabek would have expected. He leaned closer, doing his best to catch the words over the gale. 

_“How many bitter tears silently_  
_I will weep on that night when you go._  
_Sleep my angel, sweetly, softly,_  
_Bayushki bayu.”_

Kaito’s eyelids fluttered. His breaths were raw and shallow, growing fainter. But as Yuri sang, his haggard expression softened until it could almost be called peaceful.

_“And at night I'll wonder,_  
_I'll think that you're in trouble_  
_Far away in a strange land._  
_Sleep now, as long as you know no sorrows,_  
_Bayushki bayu.”_

Otabek bowed his head and let the tune wash over him. He shut his eyes and rocked the boy in time with Yuri’s words, letting the harsh outside world fade away, if only for a moment. 

The song tugged at his heart, coaxing it from his chest until he found it fleeing across the mountains and steppes towards home. Towards his father, mother, his brother and sisters, aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins. He wondered if they still had any hope that he was alive, if they were fighting to keep rescue efforts strong. Nobody in his family had ever been susceptible to despair; the will to fight, the will to _live_ ran strong in his bloodlines.

He would prove them right, somehow. He would hug his mother again, braid his sister’s hair, go snowboarding with his uncle, celebrate Nauryz with his cousins. 

With determination reinvigorating him, Otabek opened his eyes and found Yuri with his head bowed. He had gone silent and let the wind, now a blizzard, reclaimed the feeble refuge his lullaby had carved out.

“Yura…?”

Yuri looked up and held his gaze. He managed a watery-eyed smile. “He’s gone, Beka.”

Otabek felt his chest constrict. He rested a hand on Kaito’s neck. It was still warm, but sure enough, he couldn’t feel even a ghost of a pulse under his fingers.

With a shaky sigh, he laid the body on the floor, taking care to wipe away patches of snow. He knew he should say something to comfort Yuri or honour Kaito, but he was empty and numb, stripped of everything but his determination to live.

Yuri dragged himself to Otabek’s side and leaned heavily against his shoulder. “It feels wrong to just leave him in the open,” he murmured. “We should cover him up, at least.”

Otabek forced a hollow nod in response. He set aside the t-shirt, now brown and red, and leaned over to dig a thin black trenchcoat out of their nest. His arms and hands moved mechanically to lay it over Kaito, making sure his face was fully covered.

Silence reigned for what might have been a few minutes or a few seconds, but then Yuri spoke. “I guess this means I’m next.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The lullaby.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oshON1NsjPY) Proper translation in the comments. I like to imagine Yuri heard this as a young child and ended up knowing it by heart.


	5. Eyes of a Soldier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rest of the fic is fully planned out but might be a bit slow, as I'm on the tail end of an annoying cold and rushing to make up lost time with some papers due at the end of the month.

Everything felt as though it had become ten times colder.

Otabek spoke with more conviction than he’d felt in days. “You’re not next, Yura.” 

Yuri nuzzled into his shoulder, still careful to avoid his injury even when that should have been the least of his concerns. “It’s okay, Beka,” he rasped. “I’m not done fighting. B-but I’m really tired, and you have to be realistic… promise, if I don’t make it, y-you won't blame yourself.”

“No.” 

A dull, persistent pressure began pounding at the back of Otabek’s head. No way, no way in hell. If Yuri was convinced his own death was near, then he’d burn hot enough to keep them both alive until daybreak, and after that he’d keep doing whatever it took to make sure they got off this mountainside together. He hadn’t known that his will to survive could extend to Yuri, but really, he shouldn’t have been so surprised, he thought. For better or worse, Yuri was a part of who he was now.

It sounded absurd when he thought it out word for word, and he nearly coughed out a dry laugh, but the cold bloom of a red nose pressing into his neck captured his attention.

“I’m freezing,” Yuri mumbled, wrapping his arms around Otabek’s shoulders and pulling himself into the older skater’s lap as though his broken bones weren’t hurting him anymore. Otabek could feel Yuri’s body quaking with shivers so strong he worried they would rattle flesh from bone. “If we’re gonna die, we might as well cuddle or s-some shit.”

Otabek gladly accepted the offer. Cold winds had begun to scurry into the broken jet and dance around them, mocking them and sapping their strength away. But the more body contact they shared, the better his chances of keeping Yuri conscious and coherent and alive. He ran shaking fingers through Yuri’s hair, brushing from the top of his scalp to the once-silky ends that rested in a frosty halo around his shoulders. 

He had no idea if it was any comfort to Yuri, but at least it kept his fingers from freezing solid and falling off. It was impossible to tell how long they lay like that—the night dragged on and on and blended into a mess of pain and shivering—but eventually Yuri spoke.

“B-Beka?”

Yuri’s voice was unbearably _small_. Where had his singing voice gone? Or had he been pushing himself far beyond his limits this whole time, just like Kaito? Otabek bit down on his lower lip and didn’t stop when he tasted blood. Was Yuri right when he guessed he’d be the next to die?

“Beka, can you t-tell me a story?”

Maybe Yuri had a point, maybe distraction was what they both needed. Otabek didn’t expect anything to come easily, given the state he was in, but almost as soon as he opened his mind to ideas, a memory trickled in and curled around him, warm and comforting. He smiled.

“I know you don’t remember your time at Yakov’s summer camp very well. But I do.”

“Mmn.” He could feel Yuri’s lashes fluttering against his neck.

“One of the small boys was being teased. It was the third day in a row he hadn’t brought lunch, and there was this kid named Sergei who kept making fun of him, calling him a hoodlum, a piece of shit. The boy didn’t react at first, but then Sergei said he was going to do very inappropriate things to the boy’s mother. I thought maybe I should intervene, but you know what happened then?”

Otabek couldn’t see Yuri’s fragile smile, but he could imagine it, picture the tweak of his mouth, the sharp light in his eyes as though it was right in front of him. He was almost glad that Yuri was facing away, so the image in his mind wouldn’t be ruined by the ugliness of their reality.

“Yeah,” Yuri whispered, “I kicked him right in the face and h-he fell on his ass and started crying like a- hngh.” 

His shoulders stiffened. Terror gripped Otabek in its icy fingers, but the chokehold relented as Yuri shifted and rested his face against his chest. “Bit my f-fucking tongue.”

Under other circumstances, Otabek might have found it funny. Cute, even. Instead he just rested his chin on the top of Yuri’s head and closed his eyes, worrying that his friend’s muscles were beginning to fail him.

He was shaking too, he realized dumbly. The cold was relentless, sinking daggers into his muscle and bone and turning them to ice. It was nothing like a cold winter’s day in Almaty, not even like the most frigid of nights during his time in Montreal. This was the kind of cold that killed. Quickly.

If they stayed in the open, they would be slaughtered like flowerbuds in a late killing frost. The makeshift shelter was so close, just a few feet away, but it seemed such a tremendous effort to crawl under the piles of clothing that Otabek began to wonder if it might be better to just stay where they were and hope for the best. 

He considered the idea, rolling it over in his mind like a taste he didn’t know what to think of. It would be so easy, so simple to curl up with Yuri and hope the winter winds were merciful. If they could sleep through the night then it would be warmer, much warmer in the morning.

Would it kill them to sleep awhile?

An uncomfortable, squirmy feeling settled in Otabek’s head, and he buried his face in Yuri’s hair. The thought of falling asleep was impossibly cloying, but under the sweet allure something was undeniably rancid. 

Suspicion clouded out the temptation and settled around it, bringing a sudden, horrifying clarity.

Otabek jerked upright, dislodging Yuri and nearly dropping him on his broken legs. The smaller teen choked out a faltering cry but he paid no need, dragging the both of them towards the nest and ignoring the agony that seized his ailing muscles. 

“Beka, fuck, stop it!” Yuri howled. Despite the pain he must have been in, though, he remained pliant as Otabek buried them both under layers of insulation. His body screamed for mercy, every movement dug jagged blades into his exhausted limbs, and the overwhelming impulse to stop and rest punctuated every thought.

He couldn’t keep it up, he just wanted to sleep, but sleep was death and death was not an option. Otabek didn’t give a damn how cold it got—he was seeing his family again, skating again, and making sure Yuri pulled through alongside him. 

It took too long, far too long to dig down into the shelter. Time was nonexistent here and that just made it all the worse, made the stiffening of his body even harder to resist. But Otabek didn’t let himself rest until he and Yuri were bundled together and up to their waists in insulating debris. 

Letting his muscles relax was like trying to stop a speeding train: the moment he let his guard down drowsiness blurred the edges of his vision, threatening to drag him out of the waking world and into the tantalizing, _deadly_ realm of unconsciousness.

Instead he huffed, “Yura, are you… okay? I’m sorry… your legs.” 

Dreadful silence followed. Otabek nudged Yuri twice before he received a muffled response.

“It’s too hot.”

“What?”

Yuri wiggled in his arms, hands squirming to his chest and pushing away. Otabek hovered close, sure that he had misheard.

Then Yuri began fumbling with the zipper of his winter coat. He pulled at his gloves, peeling the flimsy black fabric off to reveal massive red blisters.

“Yura,” Otabek breathed, “what are you doing?”

As though taken by a trance, Yuri grabbed at the zipper and pulled it down, revealing the thin grey hoodie beneath. The sight of bare skin above the neckline startled Otabek into action and he clutched Yuri’s shoulders, searching his face for answers and shaking him as firmly as he dared. “Hey, _stop_!”

Yuri pushed feebly against Otabek. One of the blisters on his hands ruptured and began to leak: yellow fluid oozed out and pooled at the bottom of his wrist before dripping into the swaths of fabric surrounding them.

Neither moved. 

Yuri’s eyes were unfocused. Like Kaito’s had been. “The coat’s… too hot.”

There was no way this was normal, no fucking way. Otabek shook his head as vigorously as he could manage. When he spoke, he wasn’t quite able to stop his teeth from chattering. “N-No, Yura, you have to keep it on. Trust me. Please.”

Yuri let a soft moan escape, but sure enough he reached for the gloves he’d discarded, paying no heed to the bloated blisters. Otabek took the gloves and helped him fit them back onto his hands, though the fabric stretched and distorted out of shape to accommodate the swelling. 

Otabek rested a gentle hand on the back of Yuri’s head and the smaller teen curled into his touch, letting him wrap them into a snug, tangled embrace. 

The blizzard screeched, the jet creaked, and flurries snuck inside to whisper deadly persuasions in their frostbitten ears. Otabek wondered if the night would ever end.

“Be-ka,” Yuri drawled, or maybe slurred. Otabek’s cold-addled mind couldn’t make out the difference anymore. “Can I nap?”

“A-Absolutely not.” He wrapped his arms around Yuri’s neck in a feeble effort to shield him from the ravenous elements. 

Yuri mumbled, most of it nonsense until Otabek nudged him with his nose to prompt a coherent response. “Relax,” he muttered. “Just a joke.”

Otabek didn’t have a response for that, so he let the silence between them grow. If there had been a thick fog hanging over his thoughts before, it had hardened to sludge now, making everything impossibly slow and perplexing. 

“I really wanna sleep.”

“No,” Otabek insisted. Hadn’t Yuri just said that? Or something like it, maybe? He couldn’t remember. 

“Please?”

“You’ll die.”

Yuri burrowed into the crook of his neck with a whimper so raw and desperate that it felt as though his pain had jolted between them like static and shot right through Otabek’s heart. “Beka, I’m sorry. I can’t…”

“You can.” Fuck, his voice cracked. He couldn’t be showing weakness right now. What if Yuri started losing hope?

“Beka…” 

“Yuri, no, look at me.” Though his arms cried out and his shivering had devolved into violent spasms, Otabek pressed his hands firmly on either side of Yuri’s face, tilting it upwards so their exhausted gazes met. “A year ago, I s-said Yuri Plisetsky had the eyes of a soldier. D-don’t you make a liar out of me.”

Gloved hands found his. Yuri’s fingers twitched and curled until they were wrapped around his own, and though they were crusting over with yellow fluid and flakes of frost, Otabek felt a horrible dread lift off of his back and recede, if only for a moment. 

At first glance the dull seaglass that looked back at him might as well have been a death sentence, but Otabek had been trapped in those green maelstroms for years now, long enough to see what went on under the surface. Beneath the frozen exterior a fire still smoldered: beleaguered, battered, starved for fuel but glowing like a brilliant, paradoxical firecracker nevertheless.

No words passed between them. None were needed. 

Yuri wrapped trembling arms around his neck and rested his forehead on shoulder, melding into him as though trying to become two parts of one whole. Otabek supported his weight fully and placed a hand on the small of his back to keep him steady just in case.

“Then y-you… no sleeping either. Promise,” Yuri rasped.

Otabek nodded. “I promise.”

With Yuri’s arms around his neck, Otabek fought all the harder to drive back the haze that encroached on the corners of his consciousness. He buried his face in frosty blond hair, taking what comfort he could in the meager warmth.

Yuri’s hair smelled like freshly cut apples. Was it the hotel shampoo? No, that didn’t make sense. He lifted his head and sniffed the air, wincing as his nostrils constricted in the dry, bitter cold.

It wasn’t Yuri, but something definitely smelled like apples. Like the honeyed sweetness that pervaded the house in autumn, when his mother crafted tarts and turnovers that could put every bakery in Almaty to shame. He could almost hear the mischievous giggling from his youngest sister; she always insisted on snatching one from the counter as they cooled. 

An itch began to burn down Otabek’s face and he scratched at it only for his hand to come back wet. He stared dumbly before it finally occurred to him that he must have been crying.

_Enough of that,_ he thought to himself. _If you stop crying, maybe someone will finally come rescue you._

The absurdity of his thoughts eluded him as he rested his head against Yuri’s again. Outside, the blizzard waned and just the barest whisper of morning greys began to peek through the sooty black sky. 

Otabek had stopped shivering. He felt warmer with Yuri resting against him, almost too warm, like the nights he’d spent curled up in bed during thunderstorms when he was nearly nine years old. 

He could almost feel the well-worn fuzz on his teddy bear’s head as he held it close and winced into it every time the sky let loose another rumble. It was always there for him, even when his mother couldn’t be. An extension of herself, she’d said, so she would never truly leave his side.

The bedsheets were so hot. Otabek knew he shouldn’t have worn the cotton pyjamas: he always ended up restless and drenched in sweat. He wanted to throw the covers off or slip out of his pjs and sleep naked, but he was so tired, wouldn’t it just be easier to deal with the discomfort and hope he fell asleep soon?

He tossed and turned for what seemed like forever, clutching his bear to his chest. Rain pattered against the window, lulling him towards unconsciousness. The babbling drizzle was strangely uniform, coming in regular beats that seemed to grow steadily louder. It sounded like an appliance, but why would someone be running the washing machine this late? What else could-

Otabek opened his eyes and reality hit him like a hurricane. 

Morning light danced over the snow that had blown into the cabin overnight. Outside, the churning of a rotor echoed through the treacherous peaks like a victory march.

His legs were stiff and stubborn but he dragged their dead weight behind him as he scrambled out of the plane, throwing every last shred of energy into one last heave as he pulled himself clear of the fuselage and waved frantically.

There, less than a kilometre away and barely visible in the blinding golden dawn. A red and white helicopter.

His chest tightened, he could barely breathe, he gasped for breath that wouldn’t come and wondered if he was dying until he realized no, he was panting for breath because he was sobbing and screaming and leaping from the snow as best as his lethargic legs would let him.

Bright light and hot tears stung Otabek’s eyes in equal measure as the helicopter flew a full circle around the crash site. He waved wildly and could barely make out cheering voices, pumping fists, astonished grins from the faces that were now only yards away.

The helicopter descended on the other side of the wreck and dropped out of sight. The waning thrum of the blades told him it was setting down, it was here, this was real, he had _survived_.

Otabek crawled back into the plane on all fours, his muscles so sluggish it was like he was wading through quicksand. Dizziness crashed over him and brought him from his hands and knees to the ground. But it was okay, he could stop fighting, all he had to do was stay alive and let the rescuers do their job. 

Snow crunched under running feet and before he knew what was happening he was being hoisted into the air and made to lie face-up on a stretcher. All he could hear now was excited shouting from the men and women looking down at him. Otabek reached out shakily and grasped the nearest wrist to reaffirm that this really was happening. 

“You’re safe,” the woman whose arm he’d grabbed spoke in accented English. “We have you now. You’ll be okay.”

Otabek had never heard more welcome words in his life. Every muscle fibre, every bone, every synapse screamed at him to just get to the helicopter and go, but he couldn’t leave this hellish place without his other half.

“Yuri,” he croaked, giving the red-clad rescuers pause. They glanced amongst themselves and exchanged brief conversation in another language before slowly laying him down. He rolled onto his side and began to crawl, and didn’t stop trying even when the rescuers took a firm hold on his shoulders and yelled at him to stop.

His body was giving out. The injuries from the crash, the exhaustion of surviving two nights on a frozen mountainside, and the liberating _relief_ of rescue all conspired to drag conscious thought away from him and replace it with the sweet release of sleep.

_Not yet._ Otabek had been sure that he had used all the energy he had left, but still he raised his arm and pointed back toward the plane. “Yuri,” he repeated.

One of the faces crowded around him retreated. The others blurred. He was being lifted again, turned around and taken towards the waiting helicopter, but when Otabek lifted his head it was the crashed jet he saw, the mess of death and wreckage that had been his world for what felt like a lifetime.

Movement caught his attention and he squinted, struggling to make out details in the sharp glow of the morning sun. Red, black, yellow. One, no, two faces. Two people.

As soon as recognized Yuri, _his Yura,_ lying limp and feeble in the arms of the last rescuer, Otabek finally let darkness claim him.


	6. Drifting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long, had to scrap and start over a few times. 
> 
> MASSIVE thank to [ModernArt2012](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernArt2012/pseuds/ModernArt2012) and [SKJC](http://archiveofourown.org/users/skjc) for their help with this chapter. I know nothing about medical shit. That said, they advised and I'm posting this chapter without an actual beta, so please feel free to point out errors!

Warm golden waves lapped at his sides.

The sky above and ocean below were both tinted with the vivid hues of sunset, and while thoughts and images passed like distant ships or hazy clouds, he couldn’t find it in him to care about anything but gazing up at the sun.

It would go hollow sometimes, as though the entire sky was a wall. The gold would fade to white or grey and there would be voices and flashes of movement. Activity. Chaos.

_Go away. Can’t you see I’m sleeping?_

He knew, vaguely, that he was waiting for something. He’d asked. 

_Asked who?_

Answers swam at the corners of his sight but when he turned to look it was nothing but strands of flaxen hair obscuring his vision.

Did he even want to leave? The glittering waters were so soft and buoyant, tickling his toes as he drifted.

He dipped beneath the waves. An abyss lay below, colourless, deeper than words or thoughts could hope to match. He could slip past the surface and escape the noise in the sky, if he wanted. Down and down until there was nothing but nothingness itself. 

Wasn’t he supposed to be somewhere, though? There was still so much to do. If he swam that deep he might lose his way and never make it back to the surface.

He stared up at the sun, forced his slender legs to tread water. A gentle wind caressed his cheek as though beckoning him upwards. His limbs, his hands and feet were so light it was almost like he could…

Just… 

Swim up into the air. 

Brilliant morning light bathed him as he hovered, drawing him away from the cavernous deep and towards the gleaming day.

_Oh. It was actually a sunrise._

 

The sky blurred and receded. Visions of billowing clouds materialized into ceiling tiles and LED lights.

Everything was a sterile white. The walls, the sheets, his casts. A hospital?

It felt like his guts had all piled into his throat and made it impossible to breathe. Had he fallen on the ice? Fuck, his casts, _holy fuck,_ did he get into a car accident? Who had he been with? Serenity gave way to panic as he tried to jerk upright and his body disobeyed, leaving him prostrate and defenseless.

He opened his mouth to holler for help, answers, reassurance, _something_. But only a dry croak came out, obstructed by a solid rod in his throat. What the fuck had they put in him? 

He gagged. Coughed, hissed. But nothing would remove the offending object so he reached up and clumsily pawed at his face until he found something sticking out of his nose. He pulled and pain exploded like fireworks in his throat but no, fuck that weak shit, this thing was coming _out_.

A creaking noise to the left-- some unconscious part of his mind recognized it as an opening door-- caught his attention and he twisted his entire body only to be met with a sharp pain in his arm. 

Blurry face, white coat, arms out in a placating gesture. “Sir, please relax-”

 _Kiss my ass!_ The tube was halfway out of his throat. Just a bit more.

The doctor was screwing with the medical equipment to the side. He seized the chance to rip the catheter out then promptly turned to the side and vomited onto the floor. The fluid stung his already-aching throat and tears squeezed at the corners of his eyes, begging for freedom. Fuck, God, it hurt so bad, _fuck!_

The floor blurred. He scrunched his face and tried to focus his eyes but nothing worked, it just went further and further out of focus. Hands on his shoulders supported him and laid him back down, but even with a still body it felt like his mind was careening into a bottomless crevasse. He couldn't sleep again, what if he didn't wake up? They were all waiting for him. Panic crowded at the corners of his vision like hungry vultures. They were going to eat him alive, he couldn't run, _he couldn't run_! Dark tendrils swarmed him and the stale lights above faded back into empiness.

 

Static. Voices buzzing around his head like mosquitoes with a death wish. His name, whispered so reverently that he thought the speaker might be crying. Crowds cheering, the smell of flowers. The black-winged vultures had ceased their vigil and flown on to new skies, and in their place solemn white walls had been built around him, equal parts protective and oppressive. The golden ocean was long gone, and with it the threatening depths of the abyss that had nearly consumed him.

The next time the waking world shifted into focus, he kept his eyes shut and fought to collect all the thoughts that were running his head in circles. Something bad had happened, and he was in a hospital. There were casts and tubes all over. That was what he knew so far. His panic began to diminish and a shaky semblance of clarity sprouted in its place. 

Slow inhale. Slow exhale. If he didn’t lose his shit this time, maybe he wouldn’t get put to sleep again. 

Eyes open.

Watery afternoon light lit the room. The door and medical equipment on the left hadn't changed, nor had the empty folding chair backed against the opposite wall. He blinked, struggling to swallow past the tube that stuck in his throat like a chunk of stale bread. Maybe not the best idea to yank it out again unless he wanted to projectile vomit all over the bed.

With some difficulty he turned his head to the side. The floor was tiled in the most sterile-looking teal linoleum he’d ever seen, and the clashing mahogany drapes hanging at the sides of the window added insult to injury. Gross.

On the ledge was a cornucopia of flowers, cards, stuffed animals, and other assorted gifts. A crappy little television played commercials in Chinese. Son of a shitstain, how long had he been out? 

The blue skies outside were blinding, but he could just barely make out the sharp edges of mountains. It wasn’t… that didn’t… Moscow didn't have mountains. So where...?

There went the door again. He tried to swallow again and winced- mother _fuck_ it was tempting to pull it out. Whoever it was had probably just come to sedate him into senseless drifting again, but maybe if he was quick he could ask where the hell he was and how he'd ended up there. 

He tilted his head towards the door, and at that same moment his groggy, drugged-up synapses did a double-take then hit a critical error and shut down.

“Yura,” Otabek croaked. “You’re awake.”

Yuri felt like he was going to drop through the floor. The droning television, the hideous curtains, the smell of flowers, everything fell away until his entire universe was sucked into a black hole and nothing remained except Otabek standing there at the center. He reached out, not daring to speak, scarcely even trusting his senses to be telling the truth. 

Then Otabek’s arms wrapped around him and fucking Christ on a bike, this was real, wasn't it. He was shaking. No-- they were _both_ shaking. Fuck. Was Beka _crying_? Man, what a loser. A fond chuckle rumbled in Yuri's throat but the tube quashed it before it escaped. He mustered all the pitiful strength he could and draped his arms across Otabek's shoulders. A riot of questions and nameless emotions churned just beneath the surface of Yuri's skin but they could wait, they could wait until he’d taken all the fucking time he pleased to curl up in his friend’s arms. 

Otabek bent to his level. Their foreheads met, their eyes met, and holy _fuck_ Yuri wanted to kiss him. His neck ached just from holding his head upright but he nuzzled closer, stiffening his shoulders to stifle the sobs that tried to claw their way out of his chest.

“Beka,” he mumbled, voice cracking. 

“Yura.” 

Fuck, he was going to cry too. He could feel his eyes watering and his whole jaw trembling. 

Maybe if he said something he could hold it off. “Don’t let go.”

“I’m here,” Otabek breathed. Chapped lips rested against Yuri’s forehead and warm, flickering comfort bloomed outward into his mind, his heart, right down into his core. He leaned into the touch like it was a lifeline, like it was the last delicate thread keeping him from blowing away in the wind. 

The sob shook its way out. Yuri bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, chasing it as though he could still catch up and bury it away where it wouldn't show Otabek how fucking _terrified_ he really was.

“You’re okay, Yura.” Otabek took Yuri’s hand and clutched it to his chest like some kind of mind reader. “We’re okay. We made it.”

“I’m-- I don't know. What. Anything.” Yuri choked on the words. Even in front of his best friend, it felt wrong to show weakness. Like he might tear them both down.

Otabek rested his chin on Yuri’s head and Yuri gladly hid in the crook of his neck. "You made it, Yuri," he whispered. "I knew you would. I never doubted you, not for a second." Of course. He was _always_ safe when they were together. Yuri's chest still tightened when another cry begged for freedom but he let it this time, fought back the waves of shame before they could crash over him. 

He still had no idea what was going on, what had happened, but the thought of facing it wasn’t quite as overwhelming so long as Otabek stayed by his side. 

Neither moved. Yuri’s body ached with quiet sobs and he was sure Otabek’s neck was a mess by now, but they were still as statues until Yuri’s breathing evened out and Otabek pulled away to kiss his forehead again. “I was just speaking to your doctor,” he admitted. “She should be here soon.”

Yuri crinkled his nose. He didn’t want a doctor. He wanted Otabek. But if he put up a fight he might end up getting put to sleep again, so he tried to dredge questions out of the muddy waters clogging his mind while Otabek took a seat at the side of the hospital bed.

Sure enough, less than a minute later the door creaked open and shut again. Otabek kept a hand on his shoulder as a middle-aged woman in scrubs observed them calmly, a clipboard in her arms.

“Good afternoon.” Her English was heavily accented but fresh and confident. Yuri’s drug-addled mind conjured up the image of a breath mint, and he had to stifle a giggle. “My name is Wang Huifang. I’m a medical doctor with the Chinese International Search and Rescue Team, CISAR for short. How are you feeling?”

Yuri snorted and pain bloomed in his throat, reminding him again of the tube stuck inside him. “Like I was hit by an 18 wheel truck,” he muttered, stumbling as he switched to English as well.

The doctor bowed her head and smiled apologetically. “I’d like to ask you a few questions to assess your mental state so we’re sure you have no brain damage. You have been unconscious for a very long time.”

Fear rippled down Yuri’s chest and coiled in his stomach like a big oily worm. Otabek scooted closer, hand moving to the back of his head to support him.

“Do you remember your name?”

“Yuri Plisetsky.” Oh. Okay, this was easy. 

“What is your favourite animal?”

“Tiger, duh,” he scoffed. It was hard to know for sure but he could have sworn Otabek was smiling.

“Your birthday?”

“Uh, yeah, March…” he pursed his lips. “Early March. March 1st, right?”

The doctor wrote on her clipboard, and Otabek’s fingers tensed before he pulled back and ran them through Yuri's hair. 

Memories unfurled like young flowers on a spring morning. A lazy morning in a Moscow hotel surrounded by YouTube hair tutorials and too many English muffins, the passage of time punctuated only by missed alarms. Laughter and stolen smiles as he admired the artistry of his new braid, eye contact that lasted just a breath longer than it did with anyone else.

Yuri glanced over at the cards and gifts by the window. Why was she asking that, anyway? Was he still sixteen? Beka didn’t look like he’d aged, at least. Fuck he wished there was a mirror in here.

The calm, professional voice coaxed his attention back. “Now, Yuri, can you tell me what you remember?”

 _Ah, shit. Just fucking let me think and maybe I’ll have an answer._

He dragged his gaze back to her. “Why don’t you tell me, _suka_?”

She turned her attention to the clipboard again. For a moment the room was silent except for the infuriating babble of pen on paper, and Yuri wanted to holler just to hear the sound of his own voice.

“So you have no knowledge of being in any sort of accident?”

“Besides looking like I was in a fucking plane crash?” Yuri pouted, nodding to his casts. 

The doctor’s pen stilled. Otabek’s hand withdrew and he covered his face with his elbow before letting out the fakest sounding cough Yuri had ever heard. 

Yuri looked between them. Something was bubbling up from his chest into his throat, and he couldn’t tell if it was bile or a scream. Maybe both. 

“Yura. We were coming from Moscow.” Otabek spoke in Russian. “To Beijing. For the Cup of China.”

His vision blanked. The room fell away and Yuri could only hear screaming, see blood splattered across the snow, and the pain, oh God the _pain_ \- 

There were hands on his shoulders again. Yuri blinked rapidly and the hospital room began to return, dull one moment and too bright the next as he reeled from overwhelming intensity of the memories. 

Otabek’s face was just inches from his, pinched with such a goddamned _concerned_ look that Yuri couldn’t bear to keep eye contact.

“Are you alright, Yuri?” the doctor asked.

 _Fucking no,_ he thought, turning away and fixing her with his best death glare. _Do I_ look _alright?_

She started writing on her stupid scritchy clipboard again. Yuri wanted her gone, just wanted Otabek to curl up with him until the crash was nothing but a bad dream. Everything was too… noisy. Her pen on paper, the hum of traffic outside. The blaring television on the other side of the room. Had it really been this loud the whole time? Yuri turned his scowl on the machine,as though he could scare it into shutting the fuck up, when he noticed the familiar sight of teeming bleachers and pristine ice. 

Otabek’s hold on his shoulders softened. “Thought you’d want to watch when you woke up. You just missed Mila’s short program.”

“Baba?” Yuri couldn’t stop the bravado from draining away, leaving him far smaller and more vulnerable than he’d have liked. The rest of the world had kept spinning and he didn’t even know how long he’d been lying in this bed like a useless goddamn rock. Was she okay? Was everyone okay? Inky worry welled up and clotted his mind, making it hard to think.

“Yeah. She beat Kosygina and Saeed but Crispino is well ahead.” 

Yuri wasn’t sure if Otabek was trying to lend a breath of normalcy to the situation or if he had some other inscrutable motive. Either way, he was happy for anything to focus on besides the terrified wailing and futile lullabies that still rang in his head. “What’s the event?”

“NHK Trophy. You’ve been sleeping a while,” Otabek admitted.

“No shit.” Yuri raised a brow at the doctor, switching to English and fortifying his battlements. Noise made him want to strangle something but he couldn’t take silence right now either. Beating around the bush wasn’t going to get him anywhere, so maybe it was time to peel off the bandage and check the damage. “So what’s the deal? When can I go home? I need to get back to training.”

Her face fell, and Yuri’s heart sank with it. “I’m very sorry, Yuri. Due to exposure to below freezing temperatures, a number of your toes failed to circulate blood properly, and as a result of lack of warmth and fresh oxygen, froze and died. All treatments to restore circulation were attempted, but there was no salvaging them.”

Weird. Everything sounded all hollow.

“We had to amputate. I’m sorry.”

It was kind of like being underwater again.

But he wasn’t alone this time. The white noise in his head faded to background static as he became aware of Otabek’s hands in his hair again, gently tugging strands into a small, loose braid. 

The doctor resumed her speech. Yuri leaned against Otabek, wishing he could just tune her out. 

“...Additionally, you suffered eleven broken bones. Your femur and fibula were fractured in multiple places. But with extensive physiotherapy, you should be able to walk again.”

“Should be?” Yuri blurted. 

No, no, _no no **no.**_

He bared his teeth. Like some disgraceful cornered stray that’d lost its claws. “Fuck you, bitch, you can’t tell me what to do!” 

“Yura,” Otabek cautioned. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Plisetsky.” Her tone was clipped now. Muted. “You might never be able to skate again, but-”

“Get out.” 

The fear in his belly went cold and heavy. She opened her mouth to respond but he drowned her out. No fucking way, they weren’t having this talk. “I said _get out_!”

She sighed through her nose, wrote on her _godforsaken clipboard_ , and nodded. “Alright. Take some time and relax, Mr. Plisetsky. I know this must be difficult.”

The second the door closed behind her with an infuriatingly neat little click, Yuri’s walls crumbled. 

He hated the way he cried.

He hated how his lungs were never full enough, how his gasps for breath turned into pathetic mewling hiccups. 

He hated the way it contorted his face and he hated how it was so ugly he had to cover it with his hands. 

Most of all, he hated that it tore away every layer of protection he’d spent so much time and effort building. It laid him bare, left him vulnerable and weak. 

Soldiers weren’t supposed to show weakness.

Yuri knew Otabek was speaking but he couldn’t hear a word. Even the din from the television and cars had faded into shrill ringing that threatened to shatter his head into a thousand pieces. 

Otabek laid a feather-light touch on the top of his head. Yuri pushed himself forward, ignoring the pain of the feeding tube as he crushed himself against his friend’s shirt to muffle his screams.

“Lying moron,” he gasped. This was fucking pitiful, he _hated_ it! “She doesn’t know shit!”

Otabek didn’t speak. Yuri almost wished he would say something to shut him up and make him stop crying, but even with all the anger in him, he couldn’t bring himself to direct any at his Beka. The reason he was sitting here at all, he realized belatedly. 

He seized the thought and focused in on it, wishing he could hold return the hug. He was alive because of Otabek. He wouldn’t have survived even a night if he’d been left to fend for himself.

_Maybe it’d have been better that way._

The words slithered into his mind, bringing with them toxic fumes and heady doubt. If the doctor was right, was there really a point in him surviving? What was he without skating? What good was a bird with broken wings?

“Yura?”

Otabek tipped his chin up with two fingers, and his touch was so gentle that Yuri caved and let him. “I’ve got videos from the Cup of China and Trophée de France on my phone. Want to watch Guang Hong Ji trip on a carpet?”

Yuri screwed his eyes shut, trying to squeeze out all the tears he might have left. He couldn’t let himself think like that when Otabek was right here with him, wiping the tears away and murmuring soft, soothing words in what Yuri assumed was Kazakh. 

It wasn’t going to be okay. Yuri knew that, and he knew hiding from reality wasn’t the right way to come to terms with what they’d gone through. What they were still going through. Hell, what they’d be going through for a _long_ time, probably the rest of their lives.

But maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world to keep the wool over his eyes a little longer. To hide under the covers and pretend nothing was wrong until the world came knocking and forced him to accept reality.

_You might never be able to skate again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wings now has a sequel called [Steadfast!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10817526/chapters/24000183)

**Author's Note:**

> I've got [Twitter](https://twitter.com/vibidi_) and [Tumblr](http://squatchland.tumblr.com/) too!


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